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"Sharjah’s property market is seeing the big investment plays coming through. A three-way alliance involving the Sharjah Government entity Shurooq, Dubai’s Emaar Properties and Eagle Hills is to oversee three projects with a combined value of Dh2.47 billion.
The largest of these will be a Dh2.26 billion “Maryam Island”, a mixed-use development located between Al Khan Lagoon and Al Mamzar peninsula.
The other projects from Omran Properties — the name of the new venture — are the Al Khan Village Resort, a five-star hotel costing Dh120.6 million, and Kalba Waterfront Mall in the Eastern region of the emirate and a development cost of Dh106 million. The land area is around 364,000 square meters and with a leasable retail area of 18,581 square meters."

"Oil prices fell on Tuesday, with U.S. crude dropping to its lowest since November, as concerns about new supplies overshadowed the latest talk by OPEC that it was looking to extend output cuts beyond June.

The decline also came ahead of the release of U.S. crude inventory data later Tuesday and on Wednesday that is expected to show a crude stock build of 2.8 million barrels for last week, according to a Reuters poll. [EIA/S]

If correct, that would be the tenth weekly crude stock build in the last 11 following a surprise dip in the prior week and could boost inventories back to a record high."

"Gulf stock markets were mostly higher on Tuesday, buoyed by firm global equities, although trading volumes were generally thin and the Egyptian bourse fell on profit taking. Abu Dhabi was the top performer, climbing 1.2 percent on strong banking shares, with National Bank of Abu Dhabi up 1.9 percent. Aldar Properties rose 1.3 percent after its chairman Abubaker al-Khoori told shareholders late on Monday of plans to increase its operating income to 2.2 billion dirhams ($599 million) in 2020 from the current 1.6 billion dirhams."

"Saudi Arabian Oil Co. is seeking to raise about $2 billion in its debut bond sale, the first step of a plan by the energy giant to tap markets for $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. Saudi Aramco, as the company is known, will sell riyal-denominated Islamic bonds, or sukuk, as early as the second quarter, the people said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are private. The sukuk may be privately placed with investors, they said. Saudi Aramco is preparing to sell bonds ahead of an IPO in 2018, the latest in a string of debt sales that raised almost $80 billion for countries in the Middle East and North Africa, the most since Bloomberg started compiling data in 1999. The Saudi government’s debut offering in October raised $17.5 billion in the biggest-ever emerging-market sale."

"Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp., are jumping into American shale with gusto, planning to spend a combined $10 billion this year, up from next to nothing only a few years ago.

The giants are gaining a foothold in West Texas with such projects as Bongo 76-43, a well which is being drilled 10,000 feet beneath the table-flat, sage-scented desert, and which then extends horizontally for a mile, blasting through rock to capture light crude from the sprawling Permian Basin.

While the first chapter of the U.S. shale revolution belonged to wildcatters such as Harold Hamm and the late Aubrey McClendon, who parlayed borrowed money into billions, Bongo 76-43 is financed by Shell."